


Wake Up to You

by smarshtastic



Series: SALTapalooza [2]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Amnesia, Blackwatch Era, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Relationship Discussions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-23
Updated: 2017-09-23
Packaged: 2019-01-04 08:02:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12164808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smarshtastic/pseuds/smarshtastic
Summary: “Jesse?” Gabe asks, quiet, trying not to let the worry bleed into his voice. After a moment, Jesse peels open his eyes with what looks like great effort. He blinks up at Gabe.“Woah,” he says, eyes glazed and wondering. His words come out slurred, his accent thicker than usual. “Wow. Are you an angel?”---After a traumatic injury in the field, Jesse's memory isn't quite the same.





	Wake Up to You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fabrega](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fabrega/gifts).



> Week One of [SALTapalooza](https://saltapalooza.tumblr.com/)! Hello and welcome to this craziness, everybody. This is a fourteen part series that will update every Saturday for the next thirteen weeks. Feel free to come yell at [me](https://twitter.com/smarshtastic/) or [fabrega](https://twitter.com/carithlee) about this on twitter. :D

It's been a long time since any of them got hurt. Blackwatch had fallen into a steady, efficient rhythm over the years; their missions are never  _ clean _ , per se, but the strike team knows how to get the job done without foolishly risking their lives in the process. At least not more than strictly necessary. 

Which is why when this particular mission went wrong, it was a big deal. Their intel was wrong, or someone got tipped off, or they made some mistake along the way - 

It was bad. 

And now Gabe sits on the floor of their stolen transport shuttle with Jesse’s head in his lap, trying to keep his neck steady as the shuttle pitches and rolls with the turbulence. He’s already barked at the Newtons to keep the shuttle steady, to go faster, and they’re doing the best they can. It’s not their fault. It might not be enough. Gabe pushes that thought out of his mind but Jesse is horribly pale, blood-stained, his eyes closed. His chest is barely rising and falling with each breath. Gabe keeps his fingers on Jesse’s pulse - it’s fluttery and weak, but it’s there. 

Gabe hates this. He’s lost count of the number of times he’s been hurt in the line of duty, and he knows Jesse is no stranger to it either. It doesn’t make it any easier, though. He mentally wills the shuttle to go faster and for Jesse’s heart to keep beating. 

Nobody in the shuttle speaks. 

When they finally land back at the base, Dr. Ziegler and her team whisk Jesse away to surgery immediately. Gabe has to let go of him - his fingers slipping away from Jesse’s wrists and the knowledge that his heart is still beating. He knows he  _ has _ to let go so that Angela and her team can do their jobs, but it doesn’t make it any easier. Not knowing Jesse’s status first hand is excruciating. Gabe dismisses the strike team before he goes to get himself cleaned up and changed. 

He doesn’t stay away from the infirmary for long. Once he’s changed and showered, Gabe makes his way back to the infirmary with one of his old sweatshirts for Jesse when he gets out of surgery. Jesse likes Gabe’s ratty old sweatshirts for reasons Gabe will never quite understand, so it will be a comfort to have one when he’s in the recovery unit. 

Gabe settles in and waits. 

And waits. 

And waits. 

Gabe shifts restlessly in his seat, glancing at the clock and then at his tablet. It’s been hours. It never takes this long. Anxiety rises in his chest, clenching around his airway, making each breath an effort, sticking in his throat. He can’t sit still any longer. He gets up and paces, back and forth, back and forth, hands clasped so tightly behind his back that he loses feeling in the tips of his fingers. 

Finally, Angela comes out of the surgery unit. She pulls her mask down from her face and scrubs a hand over her eyes. Gabe is on her in an instant. She startles.

“Commander Reyes,” she says, taking a half-step back. Gabe holds out a cup of coffee, prepared for this moment. She blinks and accepts the coffee gratefully, taking a deep gulp even though Gabe is crowding in close. 

“Any news?”

Angela holds up one finger. She tips back the rest of the coffee and hands the empty cup back to Gabe. He waits, impatient - he’s been waiting for  _ hours _ but now even mere seconds feels too long. 

“Jesse lost a lot of blood,” she says, slowly, calmly. “He had a bad concussion, which complicated things. He’s just coming out of surgery now, but I’ll want another scan after he’s had some rest.”

Gabe’s mind races, jumping to the worst conclusions. “Is he…?”

“He just needs some rest, Gabriel,” Angela says. She pats his arm gently. “Here he comes. The anesthesia is still wearing off.”

Two nurses wheel Jesse’s bed into the room. He’s still pale, but they’ve cleaned him up, a fresh new line of stitches along the left side of his hairline. Once the nurses pull up the brakes, Gabe is at his side in a moment. Angela and the nurses leave them for now, though they’ll be sure to be back soon. They’ve borne witness to enough bedside moments between Gabe and Jesse to know that they don’t actually want to be there for the soft and gooey reunion. He tucks the sweatshirt carefully across Jesse’s chest and takes Jesse’s hand in his, watching Jesse’s eyes move behind closed lids. 

“Jesse?” Gabe asks, quiet, trying not to let the worry bleed into his voice. After a moment, Jesse peels open his eyes with what looks like great effort. He blinks up at Gabe. 

“Woah,” he says, eyes glazed and wondering. His words come out slurred, his accent thicker than usual. “Wow. Are you an angel?”

“Hardly,” Gabe snorts, the smile tugging at his lips in spite of himself. He rubs his thumb over the back of Jesse’s hand. 

“You’re so…” Jesse trails off. “Wow. You’re beautiful.”

Gabe blinks, then shakes his head, still smiling. “Jesse, you’re high as a kite.”

“You know my name?” Jesse asks, awestruck. Gabe’s smile falters. “Do I know you?”

“Jesse, it’s me. Gabe - Gabriel.”

“Gabriel,” Jesse says, the name rolling around on his tongue, dragging out the syllables. “Ain’t that just the - the prettiest name I ever heard. You’re - god. Your whole thing is pretty. Like - every bit of you.”

Gabe blinks again, the color rising to his cheeks, not entirely certain how he should be reacting to this. Jesse seems to realize that Gabe’s holding his hand. He lifts his hand with difficulty. 

“Is this… yours?” Jesse asks, looking from their entwined hands to Gabe’s face and back again. 

“Oh - yes. It is -” Gabe says. Jesse looks delighted, a broad grin spreading over his face. He tries to sit up and lean in closer, but something must pull because his face crumples in pain. Gabe quickly presses Jesse back down to the bed as gently as possible. “Hey, take it easy. Just relax.”

“How come we’re holdin’ hands?” Jesse asks once he’s settled against the pillows again. 

“We’re together, Jesse.”

“Together? Like - like boyfriends?” Jesse asks. Gabe doesn’t know  _ why _ he’s blushing - they’ve been together for years - but the wondering way that Jesse poses the question makes Gabe suddenly feel shy. He nods. 

“Yeah, just like boyfriends,” Gabe says, his voice quiet. Jesse beams. 

“Boyfriends!” he says, louder than is appropriate for the recovery unit. Gabe is grateful, once again, for Angela and her team’s discretion. “How did I get so lucky, huh? Someone like you - with someone like me? Wow.”

Jesse flops back against the pillow. He seems to register the sweatshirt tucked over his chest. He draws it up to his face with his free hand. 

“Oh - this is soft,” he says, rubbing his cheek against it. 

“You should get some rest, Jesse,” Gabe says. Jesse peeks up over the edge of the sweatshirt. 

“Will you be here when I wake up?” he asks. Gabe squeezes his hand. 

“Of course I will.”

Jesse smiles, softer this time, his glazed eyes crinkling at the corners. “Do we say I love you yet?”

Gabe feels the color rise into his face again. “We do.”

“Wanna - I wanna hear you say it,” Jesse says. Gabe can’t deny him - not when he’s sober, and not when he’s sailing high on Angela’s best pain medication. He leans in close and brushes his lips over Jesse’s forehead. 

“I love you, Jesse,” Gabe says softly. “Get some sleep.”

Jesse smiles, big and open, uncharacteristically vulnerable and unguarded. “I love you too, Gabe. Gabriel.”

Gabe squeezes his hand and settles in as Jesse drifts back off to sleep. 

=-=-=

A few hours later, Jesse wakes up again. He blinks open his eyes and looks around before settling on Gabe’s face. Gabe hadn’t moved all night, slipping in and out of a light doze, waking often to check on Jesse. Now, though, something in Jesse’s eyes as he wakes up this time gives Gabe pause. 

“Hey,” he says, softly, giving Jesse’s hand a little squeeze. Jesse blinks.

“Hi,” he replies uncertainly, eyes scanning Gabe’s face in the dim light of the recovery unit. “You’re… you’re beautiful.”

Gabe scrunches up his face. “Oh - stop that.”

“Why would I stop?” Jesse asks. He reaches up to touch Gabe’s face. “You’re like an angel. Did the doc send you?”

“Jesse…” Gabe says, shaking his head. Jesse blinks. 

“You know my name?” he asks. Something in the back of Gabe’s head perks up, worried and alert. He nods slowly. 

“I do. Jesse McCree. Do you know mine?”

Jesse screws up his face then shakes his head. Gabe frowns slightly. “It’s Gabe. You know me.”

“I do?”

Something clenches around Gabe’s heart. “We’re - Jesse, we’re together. You’re my boyfriend.”

“Really?” Jesse says, his face lighting up. “You and me?”

“Yeah, Jesse. For a long time.”

“Wow - wow. Oh man, I got lucky,” Jesse says. He looks away, then back up at Gabe. “Really?”

“Really,” Gabe nods. Jesse lets out his breath in a  _ whoosh _ . 

“Wow,” he breathes. “A long time, you said?”

“A long time,” Gabe says. Jesse looks up at Gabe, searching his face with wide eyes, not quite believing what he’s hearing. 

“How come we’re not married?” Jesse asks. Gabe’s fingers tighten around his hand, his heart suddenly pounding in his throat. 

“We’ve never really… talked about that,” Gabe says. It’s true - it always seemed like it would be asking too much of the universe to let them be married, together, happy. They ought to be able to take what they can get. It should be enough, being boyfriends, being together in the only way they know how. To ask for more… Jesse rolls his head to the side to look at their entwined hands. 

“We should,” he says, trying and failing to stifle a yawn. “Can’t let you get away.”

“I’m not going anywhere, Jesse,” Gabe says. He squeezes his hand gently. “Get some rest.”

“Uh huh,” Jesse says, yawning again. “You gonna be here when I wake up?”

“Of course.”

“Okay. Okay, good,” Jesse says. He wiggles a little, discovering the sweatshirt once again. He pulls it in with his other hand. “Gabe?”

“Hm?”

“Love you,” Jesse says. He pauses. “We say that, right?”

“We do. I love you too.”

Jesse smiles, sleepy and pleased. “Say it ‘gain. Your voice - it’s a good voice.”

Gabe leans in close, indulgent. “Love you. Love you, Jesse. I love you.”

Jesse drifts off to sleep, a smile on his lips and his fingers curled tight around Gabe’s hand. The pinch between his brows evens out as he sinks deeper into sleep, making him look younger than he has in years. Gabe keeps murmuring his  _ I love you _ s, half to soothe Jesse, and half to soothe himself. Jesse will be okay, Gabe reminds himself. Jesse is always okay. 

=-=-=

The next time Jesse wakes up, it’s because Angela is there, checking Jesse’s vitals and taking scans with a handheld biometric reader. She wakes Gabe, too, as she bustles around the bed to take a peek at Jesse’s healing wounds in the early morning light. 

“Woah there, woah - hey - hey!”

Gabe sits up, immediately alert. Angela makes a face at both of them. “Please lie still, Jesse.”

“I don’t know you!” Jesse says, trying to shy away. He catches sight of Gabe out of the corner of his eye. “Woah. I could stand to know you, darlin’.”

Gabe’s expression doesn’t change, even as Angela looks between them. He squeezes Jesse’s hand. 

“You know me, Jesse,” Gabe says. “Gabe. Your boyfriend.”

Jesse lights up. “ _ My _ boyfriend? Hell, look at you - you’re my boyfriend?”

“For a long time, even,” Gabe says. He might never get tired of the way Jesse lights up every time he tells him - even though that worried voice in the back of his head is beginning to nag again. For all the times that Jesse’s been put under or had a concussion, there’s never been a time that Jesse’s forgotten who he is. “Let Dr. Ziegler do her job.”

“Sure, yeah,” Jesse says, eyes never leaving Gabe’s face. He lies still long enough to let Angela get her readings. “God. Look at you - we’re really together?”

“We are.”

“Turn around,” Jesse says. Gabe blinks, the color creeping into his cheeks. 

“Jesse.”

“C’mon - please? I just - god, you’re something to look at, ain’t you?” Jesse says.

“Commander Reyes, a word?” Angela says, finally taking a step back from Jesse’s bedside. Gabe tries to detangle his hand from Jesse’s. 

“Sure,” he says. He looks at Jesse. “I’ll be right back. You just relax now, won’t you?”

“You promise you’re coming back?” Jesse says, brow furrowing. Gabe nods. 

“I promise.”

“Can I get a kiss first?”

Gabe sneaks a glance at Angela - she rolls her eyes fondly - then leans in and kisses Jesse’s cheek sweetly. Jesse turns his head so that he can kiss Gabe, properly, on the lips. Gabe doesn’t pull away immediately. When he does, he touches Jesse’s cheek. 

“Get some rest. I’ll be right back.”

“Hate to watch you go, darlin’, but…” Jesse trails off. Gabe can surely feel his eyes on his backside as he retreats a few feet away to speak with Angela.

“Jesse’s concussion might be more severe than we thought,” she says. “It seems like he’s suffering from a type of post-traumatic amnesia.”

Gabe blinks at her. “What does that mean?”

“It’s temporary,” she assures him, though Gabe can’t help but wish she had opened with that. “Has he recognized you at all?”

“No,” Gabe says. “He’s woken up a couple of times, but he’s been… forgetful. I’ve had to remind him.”

“Angry? Disoriented? Confused?” Angela prompts. Gabe shakes his head. 

“Not really - relatively calm. Just forgetful,” Gabe says. Angela lets a breath out, her face going a little thoughtful. 

“We’ll keep an eye on it,” Angela says, seeming to decide something. “His symptoms are fairly mild, all things considered, and the biotics have helped speed the healing. He should get some more rest - you just let me know if he starts exhibiting any aggression or anger.”

“Is that likely?” Gabe asks, worried again. Angela spreads her hands. 

“We’ll keep an eye on it, Gabriel,” she says, her tone trying to be reassuring. Gabe glances back to the bed where Jesse is lying. Jesse catches Gabe’s eye and grins. 

“Yeah. Alright.”

Angela leaves and Gabe returns to Jesse’s side. Jesse reaches out to take his hand again. 

“Your backside’s almost as good as your front,” Jesse says. “Maybe if you got some tighter pants -”

“Jesse,” Gabe says, shaking his head, but he lets the corners of his mouth turn up. Jesse tugs on his hand, urging him down to sit on the edge of the bed. 

“I mean it,” Jesse says. “You’re so handsome. We’re really together?”

“For a long time,” Gabe says again, lacing their fingers together tightly. Jesse smiles up at him, sunny and open and full of love. 

“How’d we meet?” Jesse asks. Gabe blinks, taken aback, then he smiles. 

“You were supposed to go to prison,” Gabe says. “I offered you an alternative.”

“A knight in shining armor, huh?” Jesse says after a moment’s thoughtful pause. Gabe ducks his head. 

“You didn’t think of it that way, I’m pretty sure,” Gabe says. “You sulked for  _ years _ , practically. But you came around. You were -  _ are _ my best agent.”

“I work for you?”

“We’re partners,” Gabe corrects, gently. It’s always something they tread lightly around, something that Overwatch hammered home; Gabe is Jesse’s superior, fraternization is discouraged, balance of power is important. Gabe’s lip twitches when he adds, “You pursued me.”

Jesse laughs, surprised. “Me? Really?”

Gabe finds himself smiling. “Yeah. You’re a persistent motherfucker.”

Jesse laughs again. “Sounds like me,” he says. He squeezes Gabe’s hand again. “What convinced you?”

“Your charm,” Gabe says, mostly joking. Jesse tugs on his hand, so Gabe relents. “There was a close call, on a mission. We barely made it out alive, and…” Gabe trails off, remembering: the acrid smell of smoke; the bright, hot flash of explosions behind them; the blood on Jesse’s teeth; the sting of his own wounds pulling in his side - then the soft press of Jesse’s lips on his own, the slight edge of teeth and desperation, Jesse’s hands on either side of his face, steady, grounding. Certain. “And then you kissed me. And I remember thinking, what’s stopping me? Why am I holding back?”

“I kissed you?”

“You did.”

Jesse searches Gabe’s face, eyes round and thoughtful. “Well, that must’ve been the first time I did something right.”

Gabe laughs. He brings Jesse’s hand to his mouth and presses his lips against the scraped and bruised knuckles. 

“Hardly,” Gabe says. “If it was the first time, it was the first of many.”

“First of many good kisses?” Jesse says, tugging his hand back down, trying to pull Gabe closer. Gabe indulges him after resisting just for a moment. 

“Something like that,” Gabe says. Jesse reaches up with his other hand and leans up the rest of the way to brush his lips against Gabe’s own. Gabe closes the distance between them to kiss him properly. 

“A long time, huh?” Jesse asks, lips still close to Gabe’s. He nods, unwilling to pull away. “How come we don’t get married?”

Gabe stiffens. That question again. It makes something clench in Gabe’s chest, an old fear welling up that he’s loathe to unbury. He can’t explain it - he doesn’t  _ want  _ to explain it, not now, not when Jesse is liable to forget from one moment to the next. 

“It’s complicated,” Gabe says after too-long of a pause. Jesse pulls back to search his face again. 

“Complicated how?” he asks. Gabe rubs his free hand over his face. 

“There’s too much…” Gabe starts to say, then stops. “The job we do - it’s too much of a liability.”

“But people know we’re together, don’t they?” Jesse asks, a demanding edge to his voice. Gabe nods. “Then how come we don’t get married?”

“Jesse,” Gabe says, a pleading note to his voice. He doesn’t want to have this conversation, not now - maybe not ever. 

“Do you love me?” Jesse asks. His expression is painfully earnest, open, vulnerable. It’s the sort of look that Gabe can’t deny, even when he’s feeling strong. It’s not a fair question, though, and Jesse knows it. 

“Of course I do, Jesse,” Gabe breathes. “I love you so much.”

“Then?” Jesse says. 

“You don’t want to be tied to me for the rest of your life,” Gabe says, quietly enough that maybe he won’t be able to hear. Jesse’s face falls. 

“Why would you say that, Gabe?” Jesse asks. Gabe has to remind himself that Jesse likely won’t remember this in a few hours, that maybe - just maybe - he’ll have to rehash this whole conversation over again. 

“I’m… not a good person, Jesse,” Gabe says, whispers. He wouldn’t say it out loud if he wasn’t certain that Jesse would forget it - hell, he would hardly admit it to himself. But there’s something about the open, trusting way that Jesse looks at him that makes Gabe start speaking. “I do what needs to be done, I don’t stop until the job is finished, I make decisions which hurt people… I don’t take time off, I don’t rest, I don’t do anything for myself, and yet it’s all, somehow, entirely selfish because I can’t  _ not _ work, I can’t spare a moment to think about anything but what I want to do - what I  _ need _ to do, at the expense of everyone I care about.”

“Gabe,” Jesse interrupts, quietly, firmly. He reaches up and cups Gabe’s cheek. “You’re a goddamn hero.”

Gabe looks away but Jesse turns his face back to look at him. “I mean it,” Jesse says. “Ain’t nobody in this world who tries as hard to do right ‘cept for you.”

“Jesse,” Gabe breathes out, shaking his head a little. It’s the concussion - the post-traumatic amnesia talking, surely. 

“Do you love me, Gabe?” Jesse asks again, face serious. 

“I do.”

“Do you trust me?”

“I do,” Gabe says. 

“Then think about it, please?” Jesse says. 

“I think you’ve hit your head really hard,” Gabe says, trying to play it off. Jesse tugs on his hand. 

“No, really. Gabe - please. Think about it,” he says. “There ain’t nobody I’d rather spend my life with than you.”

“You hardly remembered me just a little while ago,” Gabe points out, a half-hearted protest. 

“It feels right, Gabe,” Jesse says. “I don’t want to lose my chance to do something right.”

Gabe looks at Jesse’s painfully earnest face, the urgency in his eyes, the way his hand clutches at his own. He wants, desperately, to indulge him - and indulge himself. He  _ does _ want to spend the rest of his life with Jesse McCree, but he can’t in good conscience promise that to a man who’s liable to forget this conversation ever happened. 

But then… 

“Alright,” Gabe says. Jesse blinks. 

“Alright?”

“I want to marry you, Jesse,” Gabe says. Jesse’s face breaks out in a huge grin. 

“Really?”

“I do,” Gabe says. He means it, too - it’s maybe the most honest thing he’s ever said out loud. “I want to marry you.”

Jesse tugs at his hand, dragging him down until he can kiss Gabe’s lips, cheeks, jaw - any bit he can reach. 

“I love you,” Jesse says. “I love you, Gabe. I love you. I’m gonna marry the shit outta you.”

Gabe finds himself laughing into the kisses, feeling lighter than he has any right to feel. He ends up on his side, lying down next to Jesse in the narrow hospital bed, kissing Jesse back when he holds still long enough to let Gabe’s lips brush his skin. For this brief moment, Gabe can allow himself a hope for a bright future, one in which he remains entwined with Jesse until their dying breaths. 

Just for a moment, he tells himself. He can indulge just this once. 

=-=-=

Later that evening, Jesse wakes with a groan. He’s tucked into Gabe’s side, face pressed into his neck, his arm slung across Gabe’s chest with Gabe’s sweatshirt tucked between them. He shifts, limbs stiff and uncomfortable, pulling Gabe out of his own light doze. 

“Mm - shh,” Gabe murmurs. Jesse groans again. 

“Gabe,” he says. “I hurt.”

Gabe blinks open his eyes, registering his own name. “Jesse?”

“I feel like I got hit by a truck,” he says, peeking up at Gabe. “How long was I out?”

Gabe’s mind races. He considers, for a moment, pretending the last 24 hours or so didn’t happen at all - how much can Jesse possibly remember? But it feels dishonest, and Gabe isn’t about to lie to Jesse either. 

“Off and on, for a day or so,” Gabe says. Jesse rubs at his eyes. 

“Had the weirdest dreams,” Jesse says. He shifts then winces. Gabe puts a hand on his shoulder to steady him. 

“Try not to move too much,” Gabe says. “About what?”

“Well, I’m pretty sure you agreed to marry me,” Jesse says. Gabe freezes, halfway off the side of the bed. Jesse turns his gaze up at him. “Crazy, right?”

“Hah,” Gabe says weakly. He’s sure that his expression has given him away. Jesse knows him too well. Sure enough - 

“Wait,” Jesse says. He sits up a little, even though it must pull. Gabe slides the rest of the way off the bed, his knees knocking together. “I  _ was _ dreaming, wasn’t I?”

“Not… exactly,” Gabe says. Jesse blinks at him. “You had some, ah, temporary memory loss. And you were asking a lot of questions. You asked if we were together, and, uh. Why we weren’t married.”

Jesse blinks at him again, the silence stretching on. “And?”

“And what?” 

“And what was your answer?”

“It’s… complicated,” Gabe says. Jesse huffs out a breath. 

“Shoulda known,” Jesse mumbles. He eases himself back against the pillows, gathering Gabe’s sweatshirt to his chest. Gabe feels a pang somewhere around his heart. 

“It’s not that I don’t want to -” Gabe says quickly. 

“But you don’t,” Jesse says. He looks up at Gabe, a clarity in his eyes that wasn’t there before, and now a hurt that makes Gabe’s throat ache. 

“I do. Jesse - I do,” Gabe says. He curls his fingers into the thin hospital sheets at the edge of the mattress. “Jesse, if there was some way I could -”

“What’s stopping you?” Jesse demands. His gaze has turned hard, his jaw set, an edge of pain in his eyes that has nothing to do with the concussion or the various other injuries he’s suffered. Gabe exhales. 

He doesn’t have a good excuse. There’s nothing to say he  _ can’t _ marry Jesse McCree - they’ve dotted their I's and crossed their T’s for Overwatch’s bureaucratic requirements, they’ve toed the line of propriety and then some - they wouldn’t be the first couple in Overwatch to tie the knot, either. Still,  _ still _ … 

Gabe is scared, there’s nothing else for it. He’s scared that he’ll mess it up. He’s scared that Jesse will leave, or change his mind, or get a better offer. He’s scared that he’ll lose Jesse - that he’ll die, or Gabe will die and Jesse will have nothing to show for it, except a cold metal ring  and an empty spot in his heart where Gabe should be. He can’t bear to think of leaving Jesse alone, not after everything they’ve been through. 

Gabe swallows hard. When he speaks, his voice is quiet, barely audible above the sound of the monitors beeping the steady sounds of Jesse’s vitals at them. “I’m scared, Jesse.”

The anger melts away from Jesse’s face in an instant. “Oh, sweetheart,” Jesse breathes. He reaches up and draws Gabe in as close as he can. “You used to tell me all the time - we don’t gotta be alone anymore. We got each other.”

Gabe tucks his face into Jesse’s shoulder, his cheeks burning up with embarrassment. His arms come up and wrap around Jesse too. 

“I know,” Gabe says, slightly muffled. Jesse pulls away enough to look him in the eye. 

“I ain’t goin’ anywhere, you know that right?” he says. He slips his hand under Gabe’s chin, tilting it up so he can look Gabe in the eye. “I love you more than anything, Gabe.”

Gabe scans Jesse’s face, not trusting himself to speak for a moment, but Jesse’s expression is nothing but earnest. Gabe lets out a breath. 

“I love you too, Jesse,” he says finally. The corner of Jesse’s mouth quirks up. 

“You don’t gotta answer now, Gabe,” Jesse says, thumb stroking along the edge of his jaw. “But, god, if I could marry you, I’d be the happiest man in the world.”

Gabe feels some wall inside him breaking down, crumbling with each light stroke of Jesse’s thumb over his jaw. He loves Jesse more than anything, too. All he wants is to make Jesse happy. 

“Well, when you put it that way,” Gabe says. Jesse smiles a little wider. 

“Now, now,” he says. “Take your time. If you agree all at once, I’m really gonna get suspicious.”

Gabe laughs. He closes the space between them again and kisses Jesse hard. Jesse’s laughing into Gabe’s mouth, arms wrapping him up close. 

“I love you,” Gabe whispers between kisses. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”


End file.
